The days of wall to wall nylon based toxic carpets is over, and that is great news for homeowners looking for eco-friendly floors. We sit on our floors, lie on them, play with the kids on them, walk on them with bare feet and come into direct contact with them every day. And these days, we can even eat off of our floors if we wanted too! Face it, carpets were dirty anyway. Despite constant vacuuming and carpet cleaning with more toxic chemicals, our carpets harbored bacteria, dirt and disease.
For the homeowner looking for eco-friendly flooring, they are able to find a wide variety of good product lines and plenty of choices for the most discerning home decorator. At our house, we removed all of the carpeting 10 years ago, happily discovering oak flooring underneath in our 50 year old house. Sanding and repairing returned our floors to a beautiful wood sheen that we can maintain with daily dust mopping to get rid of the cat hair floating around from 2 cats and dust bunnies from a house of busy people.
Natural throw rugs tossed around warm up cool spots and add color and decorative highlight. So what are the options for today’s homeowner looking to replace their old outdated toxic carpet with eco-friendly choices?
My top five eco-friendly floor choices are reclaimed or sustainable wood plank flooring, bamboo flooring, cork flooring, modern linoleum, and eco carpet like 100% wool or Berber carpeting. Let’s take a brief look at each and see how they compare.
You can still have wood flooring because there are lots of choices from antique heart pine to reclaimed Australian chestnut. A lot of the reclaimed wood flooring on the market is milled from structural beams and timbers that were used in large commercial warehouses and factories built in the early 1900’s. Chemical strippers and sealants are not used in the process of reclaiming it for new flooring.
Sustainable harvested forests are supplying new wood that is milled into tongue and groove flooring planks and sold unfinished or finished. Species grown in these forests include Yellow Heart Pine, Douglas Fir, Mesquite, Oak, Maple, and Hickory. Acacia Hardwood is becoming a popular choice sold with FSC certification meaning that the wood is grown in sustainably managed forests.
Pricing: $4.50-$13.00/sq. ft. ( depending upon manufacturer, volume and contractor discounts may apply
Bamboo Flooring
Bamboo flooring is being used in many American homes as an excellent environmental alternative to hardwood floors and carpet. While Bamboo looks like wood, it technically a woody grass that grows quickly. It’s renewable about every five years as opposed to hardwood tree with their 30+ year growth.
Bamboo is naturally durable and structurally stable and easy to install. It comes in flooring planks with a tongue and groove installation. It can be installed right over plywood or glued down over concrete sub-floors. It can be refinished or finished similar to other hardwood floors for various wood grain effects or colorings.
I love the maintenance aspect of bamboo floors that can be cleaned with damp mop and vinegar water, vacuumed or dust-mopped as needed.
Pricing: $3.00-$6.00/sq. ft. depending on manufacturer and supplier
CorkFlooring
The word cork flooring brings to mind thousands of little wine corks somehow laced together into one large rug and doesn’t sound very lovely. The truth is very different. Cork flooring is gaining in popularity for many reasons. What is cork and why is it so eco-friendly?
Cork is an all natural product that is harvested from the bark of a cork oak tree. This tree is the only tree whose bark will regenerate itself after harvest, leaving the tree unharmed. The bark can be harvested every 8-9 years and is mandated by governmental agencies. In addition to it’s environmental aspects, cork flooring is also appreciated for it’s softness, patterns and colors, resistance and resilience, and it’s thermal and acoustic benefits. I could write an entire article on the numerous benefits of cork flooring but you can check them out yourself from the authorities at Cork Flooring Benefits
Cork Flooring is particularly appropriate for kitchens and areas where you will be standing a lot, for children’s rooms due to it’s anti-bacterial qualities and in playrooms and family areas.
Pricing: $2.75-$6.00/sq. ft. depending on pattern and quantity ordered
Linoleum and Marmoleum Flooring
I remember my grandma’s linoleum flooring. It was the same flooring in her kitchen floor for the entire 30 years I knew her. Pink and black linoleum squares that were waxed and looked beautifully like Grandma. It never was torn or dirty, extremely durable through children, grand-children, cats, dogs and the daily abuse of a large extended family.
Today’s linoleum floors retain much of that same durability and people often think of them as vinyl or toxic non eco-friendly flooring, but linoleum is not vinyl. Genuine linoleum was invented 150 years ago from linseed oil, which comes from the flax plant, it’s primary ingredient. Other ingredients in linoleum include wood or cork powder, resins and ground limestone. Mineral pigments provide the coloring. These ingredients are mixed together, rolled out between two cyclinder onto a jute backing. The linoleum is then cured in giant ovens for 14 to 21 days. Most linoleum is sold in solid sheets or rolls and can be somewhat trickier to install as opposed to tongue and groove plank flooring or tiles.
Linoleum is perfect choice for high traffic areas like laundry rooms, kitchens, playrooms but can be used throughout the house with today’s beautiful designs and finishes Sweep and mop maintenance bit a polish needed approximately 1-2 times a year to protect floor from stains and restore glossy look.
Pricing: $2.00 to $3.00/sq. ft
Marmoleum is a specific brand of linoleum and can be purchased in square tiles for installation instead of large sheets like linoleum. Marmoleum costs a bit more at $6.00 to $9.00 per square feet.
Environmentally Friendly Carpet
The toxicity of most indoor wall to wall carpets is not something that the average American family is aware of. It’s really staggering to consider exactly how harmful the majority of indoor carpets are. This information site at Natural Living details those facts clearly and succinctly and every homeowner considering new carpet should check the facts before purchasing any carpeting for their home.
But if you just feel you have to have the warm soft under the foot feel of wall to wall carpet there are some alternatives. Tree Hugger.com, a popular environmental website recommends that you look for carpets with Green Label Plus Certification. In 2004 the Carpet and Rug Institute put into place certification standards for carpets that have passed a variety of laboratory tests for emissions from thirteen of the most toxic chemicals in carpeting.
But the best alternative is to find carpets that are made from natural fibers of wool, cotton and hemp. Biohaus makes some wonderful natural fiber carpets. Their wool carpets are made of s. 100% wool from Denmark and Australia, with a jute backing with natural latex adhesive from the rubber tree. Like all wool products this carpet repels dirt naturally with regular vacuuming will wear well for many years. There are no dyes, no stain repellant chemicals, no bleaching and no synthetic latex products in Biohaus carpeting.
Obviously the price tag will reflect all of these factors. A more affordable option might be to use eco-friendly area rugs like Biohaus or other natural fibers over hard floors like bamboo, cork or reclaimed wood
There are such great choices on the market for those of us who want eco-friendly flooring whether it’s for the health reasons or to protect landfills from mountains of environmentally damaging old flooring. You can easily find the perfect eco-friendly flooring to fit your needs and to enrich your home environment. Check out some of these suppliers and what they offer.
Variety of Eco-Friendly Flooring Suppliers
Contempo Floor Covering— Carpeting made from natural materials.
Eco-Friendly Flooring –– Sustainable flooring sales and reference
